The city of Penticton, British Columbia has launched a pilot program of a new mobile parking payment app.
Residents of the city can now use a phone app to pay for parking at two locations. The parking meters are located on the 100 block of Martin Street and at the 421 Ellis St. parking lot.
The app is called Passport Canada, which eliminates the need to carry change for parking. The app also notifies you when your time is running out and gives you an option to top up remotely.
In a statement, Penticton’s bylaw supervisor Tina Siebert said:
“What we hear a lot is people don’t carry coins anymore. They want to have another option for payment. We just wanted to do a pilot and test it out to see the uptake on it and work out whether or not it is something we want to deploy city-wide.”
The program not only gives the cashless society a boost, it also saves money for the city. Other than adding stickers to the parking meters, no changes need to be made, meaning the city can use its existing infrastructure. Users simply have to enter their parking spot number and license plate information into the app.
The city will monitor the effectiveness of the pilot program over the next couple of weeks and then consider whether or not they will implement this solution at a wider scale.
Passport Canada is available as a free app on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. All users who preload $20 will receive a $5 bonus to their digital wallet.
Update: Passport also powers other parking apps in Canada such as the one in Victoria, BC.
[via Kelowna Capital News]
